Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill14564
There might be a more detailed explanation elsewhere, particularly on districtgov.org, but my recollection is this change was made for two reasons:
1. Safety: Trucks drive down one side of the road, rather than in the middle, and no one runs across the road picking up bags
2. Manpower: With only one side of the street being picked up at a time, the crew can be reduced from three to two (driver and loader).
Related: It was stated that the part of the cost saved by reducing the size of the crew would be translated into increased wages for the two that remained.
|
It was introduced as a safety improvement, and a cost savings.
It is NOT a cost savings. Actual costs are now more than DOUBLE
Agreed that using 2 instead of 3 people saves the cost of one worker per truck. Seems like that saves money, but the details prove a different thing. Since it now takes double the effort because that crew has to travel twice to collect the same amount of trash the previous 3 person truck could do. So in effect we are paying for 4 man hours time when it used to cost 3 man hour time for collecting the same amount of trash per hour.
With a wage increase, the costs are nearly twice as much to collect the same amount of trash.
Also, to drive requires a CDL license. Now both people will need a CDL, and the pay rate for that job is also higher. Means even higher costs.
Another hidden cost is the truck itself. Fuel, consumables, maintenance, tires... alre are DOUBLE the previous costs. The truck miles is double, effectively cutting its years of use in half. Meaning new trucks will need to be bought twice as often.
Traveling every road twice also means the total hours to collect is double. Overtime pay also drives to total costs up.
For "safety", it would have been cheaper to have a crew of 5. 3 to collect trash, 2 put front and back to block traffic.